Category:

Taxpayer Funded Astroturf

11/17/2022

No, I'm not talking about fake grass. I'm talking about the other kind of astroturf.

Astroturfing is the practice of masking the sponsors of a message or organization (e.g., political, advertising, religious or public relations) to make it appear as though it originates from and is supported by grassroots participants. It is a practice intended to give the statements or organizations credibility by withholding information about the source's financial connection. The term astroturfing is derived from AstroTurf, a brand of synthetic carpeting designed to resemble natural grass, as a play on the word "grassroots". The implication behind the use of the term is that instead of a "true" or "natural" grassroots effort behind the activity in question, there is a "fake" or "artificial" appearance of support.

Astroturfing has been used for decades to create artificial support for unpopular proposals or projects. The energy industry loves it. In the context of new electric transmission projects, utilities have deployed astroturfing to create "coalitions" of project supporters. In exchange for labor and supply contracts, "donations" and other quid pro arrangements, unions, chambers of commerce, social and civic organizations, local businesses and others will sing the praises of the project in the media and at regulatory and other project meetings and hearings. A group's enthusiastic participation in astroturfing is closely correlated to their proximity to the project. The less impact the project has on the group/individual, the more likely they are to accept utility gifts to participate in astroturfing.

And now the federal government wants to get into the act and use your tax dollars to buy unaffected, fake "advocates" that are supposed to outweigh, outshout, and outrule your objections to the project on your land.

This rather long article says that up to 39 million acres are needed for new generation and transmission infrastructure in just 11 western states. Just 11 states, out of 50! It goes on to opine about how our government will attempt to take control of that much privately-owned land.

“Local community opposition is real and will likely continue to make siting and permitting a challenge,” but might be addressable, said University of Notre Dame Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Policy Emily Grubert, who has worked with federal agencies on related issues.

To earn a community’s trust, development proposals “should explain why a project is needed, why the community’s resources are needed, and how the community can benefit,” Grubert said. They should also “assure the community its concerns have been heard and it will be protected,” she added.

DOE’s formal Community Benefits Agreements, which are used for new infrastructure development and stipulate the benefits a developer will deliver for the community, “could also have a powerful impact on streamlining siting and permitting,” Grubert said.

“No project should go ahead without a Community Benefit Agreement to assure real benefits for the host community,” agreed NRDC’s Greene. But in many places, “political polarization has turned reasonable project development questions into obstructive, misinformation campaigns,” Greene said. “Overcoming that will take a lot of work,” he added.

Community Benefit Agreement? What's that? Little did you know that your federal government has been busy adapting tired, old utility astroturfing tactics as a new plan to silence you so it can build infrastructure on your land and tell the world that you "benefited" from it.

According to the DOE's Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) Toolkit, the federal government is getting involved in spreading propaganda and paying off certain "community" groups in exchange for their support of a project that only tangentially affects them but is hotly opposed in a community. What groups does DOE propose could negotiate these agreements?

neighborhood associations, faith-based organizations, unions, environmental groups and others representing the interests of a community that will be impacted by development(s).

I don't see landowners on this list, although the landowners whose land is taken from them using eminent domain are the only group that is sacrificing something tangible to enable new energy projects. Landowners are also the force behind transmission opposition groups.

Instead, DOE advises that communities should consider any threatening infrastructure project as an opportunity that requires the formation of an organization to take advantage of CBA payouts. There are no requirements that the signatories to CBAs actually have to sacrifice anything at all. Just be willing to advocate for an infrastructure project that is impacting another group or individual.

A CBA is an agreement signed by community benefit groups and a developer, identifying the community benefits a developer agrees to deliver, in return for community support of the project.

Here's a list of the things the opportunistic community "groups" should do to attract a CBA

1. Research development proposals in their region to identify any that have the potential to offer benefits to the residents they will be operating near;
2. Organize a broad-based coalition of community interests and recruit stakeholder organizations;
3. Hold public meetings and maximize turnout with help from local leaders; and
4. Engage the developer with sustainable community objectives, via open dialogue as well as transparency.

But how do these unaffected community opportunists guarantee the "support" of the entire community? They can't! And the more eager they are to cooperate with developers, the less support they are going to get from the community at large.

Transmission developer astroturf groups have been spectacular flops over the years. At best, astroturf groups have amused intervenors and regulators alike with their clueless comments about how much we "need" this (or sometimes the wrong) project. At worst, astroturf groups have visited public scorn, boycotts, and flooded phone lines on community businesses who turn on their neighbors to become project advocates. Deployment of utility astroturf destroys trust and hurts communities, instead of helping them. Going back to that wordy Utility Dive article:

“People, especially in smaller communities, can get very passionate, and even exchange death threats, which shows how important and undervalued trust is,” Grubert agreed.

I really hope the death threats part is exaggerated. I've never seen that happen before, however I've also never seen the federal government get involved in what can only be called astroturfing before. If someone is injured because the federal government has been chumming for sharks in your community, who is liable?

The bottom line is that this plan has never worked for utilities. It is quickly outed as a fake and the ones participating back slowly away in the face of community anger over their mutiny. Let's think for a moment about the kinds of entities who shall act at the "groups" that sign CBAs. Neighborhood associations have enough to do without spending time looking for "opportunities" to throw their neighbors under the bus. Faith-based organizations (aka churches, even if saying it is no longer politically correct for some reason) are not going to get involved in such a divisive community issue. Love thy neighbor, not stab him in the back. Unions don't live in the community. My experience with union advocates is that they ship in busloads of members from distant cities, hardly convincing for people who actually live there. Environmental groups... they're always looking for a free lunch, but again, not from your community.

This plan will never work. The ones actually impacted by the project aren't going to be distracted by a handful of colorful beads, and they aren't going to be intimidated by opportunistic sellouts.

Here's how the federal government *thinks* it's going to work:

[community] support would raise the probability of state or local government approvals for zoning variances, state permits, and other regulatory approvals.

That's the same reason transmission developers have used astroturf in the past, although it has rarely worked out to their advantage.

Our federal government is engaging in taxpayer funded astroturf. Be on the lookout for opportunists in your own community!

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The Two Biggest Clean Energy Lies

11/16/2022

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Gaslighting is one of today's most popular political buzzwords. It means to manipulate someone by psychological means into questioning their own sanity. Unfortunately, most of the clueless babies that use it incessantly have no idea what it really means, although many of them may be quite insane.

The environmental movement, which may have been a good thing 50 years ago, has grown into an entitled brat that lies constantly. In this blog, we're going to examine the two biggest lies the "clean energy" brat tells you. While it doesn't make me question my sanity, it can make your logic center feel like you've just eaten a bad mushroom.

Clean Energy fills up its gas tank like this.

This summer, the Midwest faced a heightened risk of blackouts due to a supply shortfall that could’ve been filled if only a fraction of the projects stuck in limbo had been online. Luckily, we made it through the summer without major incident, but no one should be complacent—new supply is urgently needed. Fossil fuel dead-enders complain that we’re shutting down dirty power plants too quickly. In reality, the clean energy to replace them is ready and waiting, stuck in utility bureaucracy.

Lie number one: All the renewable energy projects waiting in regional transmission interconnection queues will deliver 24/7 at their nameplate capacity.

Nameplate capacity is the amount of energy a generator could produce if it produced at its maximum capacity. No generator produces its nameplate capacity all the time, however, some generators are better at it than others. Fossil fuel and nuclear generators run very close to their nameplate capacity, only being forced to shut down for repairs or maintenance. Renewable generators, on the other hand, can only produce electricity when their fuel is available. It's never 100% of the time. In fact capacity factors for wind and solar average 36%, and 24.5%, respectively. That means that wind and solar only produce their maximum capacity one quarter to one third of the time they operate. So, even if we thought we could add 13,000 gigawatts of renewables to the grid if all interconnection requests were granted by magic today, the reality is that less than a third of that capacity would actually produce electricity.

Lie number two: We need to build more renewables and transmission to shore up reliability.

If you want to increase reliability, you need generators that can run when called. That means when needed, not when there is fuel available. You cannot count on a wind turbine or solar panel to produce power at the exact moment you need it. Storage is not yet mature enough to provide more than a brief backup. Adding renewables will not increase reliability.

We ARE shutting down "dirty" power plants too quickly... much quicker than renewables can backstop. And this creates a problem for the unicorn utopia idea that supposes that an area where renewables fail to produce enough energy to meet demand can simply "borrow" extra electricity from the renewables of another area. What happens when those renewables are also failing to produce? Pass the buck until you find an area with excess power. But when all the "dirty" power plants have closed, there will be nothing but endless buck passing while you shiver in the dark eating your healthy government-issued insect protein.

The reliability crisis has been created by too many government-subsidized, unreliable renewables that put financial pressure on reliable "dirty" power plants to close. More unreliable renewables and less reliable "dirty" power plants equals unreliable power. Adding more unreliable sources of power isn't going to fix that.

If that doesn't sound logical to you, you may be insane.

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Misinformation Won't Help Grain Belt Express

11/5/2022

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The Silly Old Man's Club of Kirkwood must have had a Halloween meeting where this blog was dreamed up: "Tiger Connector" Planned: Kirkwood Electric Gets A Bit Of Good News On Energy Front.

It did scare the bejeezus out of me, but only because it is so completely misinformed and contains a number of outright falsehoods. I will have to say that this blog is appropriately named: Environmental Echo. Just an echo chamber for all the crazy enviro-whacko claims being made that don't have any basis in truth.

Let's start with this lie:

“We’re well on our way because the project has obtained an overwhelming majority of the easements, now has Public Service Commission approval, and now has a legislative framework,” said Petty.

The "Tiger Connector" does NOT have PSC approval. In fact, without approval of the specific "Tiger Connector" addition, the "approved" Grain Belt Express project does not have any place to connect to the Missouri electric grid. When the project was initially approved in 2019, it was planned to make a 500 MW connection in Ralls County. At some point new project owner Invenergy decided that interconnection was not viable and applied with regional grid operators to move its interconnection point to Callaway County and increase its size five-fold. This interconnection of 2500 MW is still not fully approved by the regional grid operator. Who knows where or when (or IF) GBE will ever connect. In addition, the Missouri PSC is now evaluating the project anew and may not approve the changes.

As far as the easements go, let's clear that up, shall we? Many easements have been obtained through coercion and threats of condemnation using eminent domain authority. It's not like all landowners who have signed easements under duress "do understand it and are on board." In addition, Invenergy is pursuing easement acquisition through the courts for a growing number of properties. These landowners didn't knuckle under and sign an easement out of fear but are determined to fight Invenergy tooth and nail all the way to the end.

Lastly, what is this "legislative framework"? Just because some agricultural organizations took it upon themselves to negotiate meaningless "protections" for landowners in a sneaky fashion that did not include the landowners themselves does not mean that landowners are "on board" with the way they were stabbed in the back during the last legislative session. All that aside, the SOMC of Kirkwood should be aware that Invenergy made sure to file its application for the "Tiger Connector" just days before this new "legislative framework" took effect. It will not apply to Grain Belt Express therefore, even if it was useful, it will not come into play.

And what kind of a "reporter" takes this kind of statement at face value and does not bother to verify it?

“Invenergy has always been more than generous to the farmers with their compensation for access to their property. Its supported the generous compensation spelled out in a legislative compromise that was reached in 2021,” said Petty of Kirkwood Electric.

“While a few farmers still remain skeptical about Invenergy’s intention to make this a win-win situation for all, over 70% of the landowners and a majority of folks do understand it and are on board,” Petty added.

Spoken like a true NIMBY who won't find Grain Belt Express in his own back yard. Petty has NO contact with "farmers" and does not speak for them. He has NO IDEA what they want and what they think. Pretty brassy to tell those farmers how great GBE will be for them, don't you think? Maybe you should contact him and let him know the truth so he can stop spreading misinformation.

Speaking of misinformation, what could this mean?

... Grain Belt Express, which has scored some recent successes.

Recent successes? Where? How? WHAT? There have been no "recent successes." It's just a platitude that means nothing.

And then there's this:

...Chicago-based Invenergy, which has now navigated objections to the line from rural legislators and groups like the Missouri Farm Bureau.

State legislators with ties to the fossil fuel industry have opposed the wind energy project. Farm groups also have fought the project for years over opposition to the use of eminent domain for siting of transmission towers.

Some rural landowners and farmers supported legislation meant to derail the project, including one proposal that would have given county commissions veto power over transmission projects. Farmers wanted more money for land acquisition, and resulting legislation could have killed the project.

So much misinformation in this short blurb it's hard to know where to begin. First of all, the opposition to this project has always come from affected landowners who object, not to clean energy, but to the use of eminent domain to take new easements across their working farmland. It places an impediment on the productivity of the entire parcel and costs farmers additional money and time and results in lower yields. Farm Bureau and other agricultural groups took it upon themselves to defend their members through lobbying at the legislature. But the Ag groups got a little too carried away last year and forgot about the landowners they were supposed to be working for. This doesn't mean landowners are "on board" with any of last year's meaningless legislation. Invenergy is probably still snickering at how easily the Ag groups fell for their bait and switch. And now the Ag groups are ticked off because they've been made to look foolish.

Legislators have been responsive to their constituents' opposition to Grain Belt Express. Their legislative agenda is driven by their constituents, not by any "ties to the fossil fuel industry." That's a disgustingly common Sierra Club talking point that is no longer true. People don't like ANY energy infrastructure in their community, and certainly not on their land, especially when they derive no benefit from it. Quit whining about the "fossil fuel" devils. The only devils buying legislators these days are "clean energy" companies. Clean or dirty, it's all about corporate profit. Don't lose sight of that.

Where's the proof that "farmers wanted more money for land acquisition"? This statement is concocted out of speculation and ignorance. Farmers actually say that their land is not for sale at any price! And can we talk some truth about price here for a hot minute? Eminent domain for utilities insures that the utility can acquire the land it needs to serve customers at "fair market value" instead of actual market value. The money the utility saves on land acquisition flows back to their customers in the form of lower rates. This is what's known as "cost of service" rates. The customers are charged what it costs the utility to serve them, plus reasonable return. In the case of Grain Belt Express, however, their project does not use "cost of service" rates. Instead it's what's known as a "merchant" transmission project that negotiates with voluntary customers to agree on a market based rate for service. The price GBE can charge depends on how much the voluntary customers will pay in a free and fair market. It is completely divorced from GBE's "cost of service." In GBE's case, the difference between it's cost of service and the market based rates it negotiates represents the company's profit. The cheaper the project is to build, the bigger Invenergy's profit. The market sets its rates, not its cost of serving customers.

Then there's this misinformation:

According to Petty, Missouri cities like Hannibal, Springfield and Kirkwood have supported the energy project for years. He said everyone is “jumping on the bandwagon now” and the cleaner, cheaper energy for Missouri will save money for homeowners and businesses.

Who's jumping on the bandwagon? Nobody, that's who. Invenergy has not revealed any new customers for its project since the Missouri cities got a below-cost deal handed to them back in 2016 in order to score PSC approval. GBE has had authority to negotiate voluntary customer "negotiated rate" contracts since 2014. In all the time since, Invenergy has only managed to announce one customer for less than 10% of its proposed Missouri capacity. Only the Missouri municipalities thought GBE was a good deal. Other potential customers have avoided it like the plague. Does the cities' contract represent a fantastic opportunity that everyone else is missing out on? It's more likely that the cities signed on to something that everyone else doesn't want. It's not like the Missouri cities are really smart about buying power. They bought a healthy share of the Prairie State coal-fired generation complex AFTER Missouri voted for clean energy in 2008. Doesn't sound very smart to me.

And here's your completely clueless ending:

“While a few farmers still remain skeptical about Invenergy’s intention to make this a win-win situation for all, over 70% of the landowners and a majority of folks do understand it and are on board,” Petty added.

According to Petty, it’s just a matter a time before everyone will be on the same page with the Grain Belt project.

By that token, has Petty considered that 90% of Grain Belt's potential Missouri Customers, and 100% of its potential PJM customers, are NOT on board with it? If 70% of needed easements equals landowner support, then 95% of customer avoidance equals utility opposition.

It's just a matter of time until Grain Belt Express collapses in a heap and the SOMC of Kirkwood gets left with drool on its collective chin.

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Permitting Pipe Dreams

10/6/2022

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Slippery Joe Manchin's transmission permitting deal may be dead, for now, but ignorant permitting pipe dreamers refuse to wake up. They keep talking about how they need to make electric transmission permitting a federal affair. And they think they will do it soon. Remember that when you go to the polls next month!

Here's the thing... federal authority to site and permit transmission is only going to delay things further by giving opponents a whole new toolbox of federal regulations and appeal opportunities. I challenge these idiots to find JUST ONE electric transmission project that was expedited when the federal government got involved. They can't do it.

Do we really "need" new transmission? The premise seems to be:

President Joe Biden needs to run transmission lines through deserts and over mountains to meet America’s climate goals.

How so? New transmission connecting new intermittent generators to the system that could supply a small amount of additional power just isn't needed and is, in fact, the cause of our grid becoming increasingly unreliable. Because our electric demand is not currently increasing to require additional generation, there is no need to add any, or at least not to the scale imagined by the ignoramuses. All this new dream power, propped up by your tax dollars, must force current power out of market. The electric system is a "just in time" market where generation must meet demand at all times. You can't put "extra" power from new generators in a warehouse. Therefore, when a new intermittent generator is connected, an existing one must close. All the closures lately consist of what is known as "base load" power -- the big power plants we've been relying on for years to generate power when we need it. Without base load, we can only use power when it's available, which is not necessarily when we want it. The idea that if we build enough transmission to move every intermittent electron generated anywhere to anywhere else where it can be used is something that only works on paper. Without base load power, this just can't work. It's a supply/demand house of cards.

How far are we going to go down the road of building a bunch of generation and transmission that can't serve our needs before someone finally admits it's nothing but a giant scam designed to fill elite pockets with taxpayer and ratepayer dollars. When are we going to listen to the real experts who are running the power grid? I'm talking about those guys in the control room, not the stuffed suits whose bonuses are tied to profits. We need to stop listening to self-designated "experts" from environmental groups, woke universities, and elites like "farmer" Bill Gates (who apparently also doubles as a power engineer... who knew?)

This stuff needs to stop before we're all sitting in the dark. But here's the thing... the reasons that new electric transmission keeps getting delayed is, first and foremost, opposition from affected communities. There's nothing federal permitting can do about that. Social spending and green new deal legislation masquerading as "inflation reduction" purports that paying bribes to affected communities in exchange for quiet acceptance of impacts from transmission that doesn't serve them is a solution. No, it's not. Paying a town to accept a burden on the private property of a handful of its residents doesn't change anything. In fact, it just ratchets up suspicion and mobilizes the entire community against the project. Just because bribes are offered doesn't mean local elected officials would accept them. Key word: elected. So, instead of paying people to accept impacts, how about not creating impacts in the first place? New transmission ideas by smart companies are proposed to be buried on existing linear rights of way, such as highways or rail lines, and these projects are sailing through approvals without delaying opposition. Why not legislation to inspire buried projects that don't create impacts? That would be a whole lot faster!

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, a professional organization of state utility regulators, recently sent a letter to slippery Joe and his Congressional pals that hits a bullseye on the reasons why electric transmission projects take so long to build. Who knows better than the officials who oversee the permitting process? I also agree with it completely. After more than 15 years working with various transmission opposition groups, this has been my experience as well. Here's a quote from the letter:

NARUC contends that the major impediments to siting energy infrastructure, in general, and electric transmission, in particular, are (in no particular order): 1) the great difficulty in getting public acceptance for needed facilities, which in turn drives state and federal political opposition; 2) federal permitting issues, especially in regions where large tracts of land are federally owned; 3) potential customers for the project being considered do not need or want the additional electricity, thereby making the project uneconomical; and finally, 4) cost and cost allocation issues, which may make alternatives to building transmission more economical and/or more environmentally sound. With regard to federal permitting issues, these will only be exacerbated should FERC become more involved in siting, as is contemplated in the discussion draft, because opponents will now be able to use the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to slow or derail a project, as has been done quite successfully in FERC jurisdictional pipeline proceedings. This suggests that regardless of where siting authority falls –with state government, the federal government, or both –siting energy infrastructure will not be easy and there will be “no quick fix.”

Bang! That's it! Opposition, speculative merchant projects, impacts/costs without benefit, and federal involvement are what delay transmission permitting. Federal authority can't fix this broken system. It's like repairing a broken radiator by hitting it with a hammer.

The power-drunk environmentalists are slowly killing their Precious. Their thirst for power over others is encouraging them to select the most unworkable option. The transmission cheerleaders are completely and utterly clueless about what causes and motivates transmission opposition, therefore they continue to choose the wrong fix. Is this really about climate change? Or is it just about elitism, greed, and political power?

All the wokester morons can stop their alarmist rhetoric, it's not working on the smart people:

“We need to get a better balance because we just can’t take 10 or 16 years to build a really good transmission project. It is not tolerable,” said Ken Wilson, an engineering fellow at Western Resource Advocates, an environmental group. “If that continues to be the norm, we’re not going to have an environment to worry about. It’s going to be burned up and dried up, and the stuff we wanted to protect won’t be there anymore.”

Rrrrrright... only if we build a whole bunch of new transmission within 10 years can we stop everything from burning up? No. Not at all. Never happening. It just doesn't make sense. And every time the little boys cry wolf, a bunch more smart people quit believing in this climate nonsense. Climate change is a gradual thing, always has been. These artificial deadlines by which time everything is going to be burned up and dried up keep shifting, have you ever noticed that? They keep being delayed, just like a "really good transmission project", because the feared burning planet never materializes. It's just scare tactics to get you to go along with eating bugs, having your travel limited, and learning to live without electricity or power of any kind. Since climate change is gradual, so should be any "transition" to "clean" power. It doesn't have to be artificially pushed along by social sacrifice and higher taxation.

We can only completely give up fossil fuels when we have a new kind of base load to replace them. Wind and solar are not it, even at utility scale and connected with trillions of dollars worth of new high voltage transmission.

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Invenergy Trips Over Its Grain Belt Lies

8/24/2022

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Investigative journalism is not dead! It can still be found digging away at the Mexico Ledger in Mexico, Missouri. Managing Editor Alan Dale smells a story and he's determined to tell it. This week, he asked Invenergy nine questions about its project, and then several follow-ups, one of which caught Invenergy in a lie (surprise! surprise!)

Here's how Dale caught Invenergy in its own lie:

Have you entered any new agreements with any potential partners or “customers” who will use the Grain Belt and the connector?
We have an existing contract with a consortium of 39 Missouri communities to take power from the Grain Belt Express at an annual savings for $12.8 million, and we see very strong market interest in transmission capacity from the line, which is one factor in the recent announcement to expand local delivery capacity.
Will you move forward prior to an agreement or wait until you get enough before beginning construction?
Kuykendall: “We will begin construction after acquiring the necessary easements and approvals from regulators.”

Because that answer was obviously baloney, Dale asked a follow up:

So, to clarify customers that pay into Grain Belt Express through money or service, who, if anyone, have you entered into an agreement with? If you have no one paying into the line - a customer - you are saying you would build anyway? Or do you want to expand on this?
Kuykendall: ““Grain Belt Express will be bringing power to 350,000 electric consumers across Missouri through a signed transmission service agreement with the Missouri Joint Municipal Electric Utility Commission (MJMEUC) representing 39 Missouri municipal utilities. Grain Belt Express has seen strong interest in the market and expects to secure additional customer agreements prior to construction beginning.”

Oh, that's right... Grain Belt Express *DOES* need customers to pay for the project before it builds. Why? Because Invenergy is claiming that the project will cost $7B. They're going to need a construction loan for the project, and the lender is going to need a reasonable expectation of being repaid, such as the project having paying customers that would produce a revenue stream to make timely loan payments. Duh. How dumb does Invenergy think we are anyhow?

Grain Belt also admits that it will need additional customers, in addition to the MJMEUC customer. That's because the MJMEUC contract is for "up to 200 MW" of capacity. GBE is planning to make available 2500 MW of capacity in Missouri. MJMEUC is less than 10% of the capacity offered. In addition, MJMEUC got a sweet, sweet deal because they were used by Grain Belt to show the Missouri PSC that there was some "benefit" to Missouri. Grain Belt witnesses testified at PSC hearings that MJMEUC received a "loss leader" contract price that was actually less than it cost GBE to provide the service. Invenergy isn't going to be making any construction loan payments with its proceeds from MJMEUC.

So, where are the other customers? They do not exist!! Despite all the overly optimistic blather about the customers GBE "expects", the customers are just not there.

So you might wonder... what's the rush to get Tiger Connector approved? What's the rush to acquire land? What's the rush, Invenergy, when you don't have enough customers to make your project economic?

And, let's check out some of the other prevarications in Invenergy's answers.

What measures will the company actually take to minimize negative impacts for affected landowners?
Kuykendall: “Missouri stakeholders have urged Invenergy to develop solutions to deliver more power to Missouri from the Grain Belt Express project. The Tiger Connector is necessary to meet that request, and in doing so provide billions in energy savings to Missourians.

Wait a tick... who are these "stakeholders?" Do they have names? Do they even exist? I'm thinking they do not because who, other than a customer, would urge GBE to make more capacity available in Missouri? And we know GBE doesn't have any customers other than MJMEUC. If the "stakeholders" are real, Invenergy should name them. If not, they don't exist.

And then there's the matter of eminent domain:

What will the company do to avoid condemnation, which is likely the biggest issue?
Kuykendall: “This is always a last resort for us. We’ve already acquired 84 percent of the parcels needed along the Phase I portion of the Grain Belt Express HVDC route, with nearly all of them coming through voluntary easements.

Oh, look... "nearly", my favorite weasel word! "Voluntary" is an inappropriate description of acquiring easements through threat of condemnation. I'd even go so far as to say that none of the easements are voluntary since they weren't offered before Grain Belt Express land agents came calling. Kuykendall also forgets to mention that Invenergy has already filed a number of condemnation lawsuits that are currently working their way through the Missouri court system. Why must Invenergy condemn land NOW for a project that doesn't have enough customers to get built? Will Invenergy surrender these easements when it can't find enough customers? Grain Belt's current permit from the MO PSC requires that Grain Belt give back any easements it has acquired through condemnation if it doesn't use them within 5 years. Which brings us to the next bit of propaganda...

Can you confirm that Invenergy intends to honor the 7-year Sunset revision on easements as stated in the law?
Kuykendall: “The company is still reviewing that provision of (House Bill 2005) and expects this issue to be addressed in any regulatory filings before the Missouri Public Service Commission. As you know, HB2005 does not apply to Grain Belt Express and any commitment to comply with portions of the law would be voluntary in nature.”

That's right... Grain Belt only gets 5 years, not 7. But since the Missouri ag organizations generously gave 2 years away to Invenergy in HB 2005, perhaps Invenergy can add another two years? No wonder they're being cagey. But, never fear, dear landowner, Invenergy says:

We will engage further with the Missouri Farm Bureau, other ag groups, and the Missouri Public Service Commission to implement these commitments to balance energy affordability and reliability and landowner interests in Missouri.”

What landowner rights do you suppose they will give away on your behalf next? Only YOU can look out for YOU, not some special interest group that has other issues to pursue.

And let's end with Invenergy's complete and utter nonsense about burying transmission:

Will Invenergy move lines from the middle of fields? Bury lines?
Kuykendall: “We will propose a route that takes the input gathered from these public meetings into account. We understand the desire for some or all parts of the Tiger Connector line to be buried. Undergrounding the Tiger Connector would require burying two separate transmission systems to meet safety and reliability requirements. This makes undergrounding a non-starter.

“The Tiger Connector line will have one circuit for MISO and one circuit for AECI.
“Overhead line maintenance can be performed by shutting down one circuit while the other continues to deliver power.
“This is not possible underground because workers cannot work with a live circuit present, and federal reliability requirements prohibit a system design that would shut down power delivery to multiple markets at once. This would require two separate buried systems.
“Undergrounding would also have much greater impacts on ag operations, including:
Eight times as much land permanently taken out of production.
Over 80 times the excavation that can reduce yields from compaction and soil mixing.
Permanent “call before you dig” requirements for landowners in easement areas.
Ag impacts result from:
Excavating two buried cable trenches across the entire length of the line – with the trenches separated sixty feet from each other. Recent studies of other buried infrastructure projects have shown reduced yields for corn and beans between 15-25 percent due to compaction and the mixing of topsoil and subsoil caused by trenching.
Installation of permanent access bunkers which are like U-Haul trucks parked in the ground every 2,000 feet in pairs, one along each set of buried cables. Crops cannot be grown over these, and each set would be farmed around.
“In addition to the significant land impacts, this request could set a precedent for other future transmission lines in Missouri, representing billions of dollars in added costs for Missouri electric consumers over time.
“Stakeholders have cited the importance of balancing energy affordability and reliability while also serving landowner interests. Burying any part of Grain Belt Express would fail both of these goals.”
Kuykendall added these statistics to the response:
1.3 acres permanently out of production, vs. 0.16 acres
484,853 total cubic yards of soil excavation for undergrounding, vs. 5,759 cubic yards for monopole foundations

You need to bury two separate systems? Why? Are there two separate transmission lines? Workers can't be near a live circuit underground, but they can be near one above ground? If you can shut off the current to an aerial circuit, why can't you shut off current to a buried circuit? Point us to these "safety and reliability requirements" you quote. Or maybe you're simply making the whole thing up? I think Invenergy is trying much too hard to repel the idea of undergrounding the lines. None of this makes actual sense. It makes my logic bone ache.

Burial would have greater impacts on agriculture? Only if you buried the line on new rights of way across agricultural land, but that's not necessary at all. Buried transmission can be sited alongside existing road and rail rights of way, where they can bury the U-Haul truck vaults that allow faults to be repaired without digging up the entire line (something Invenergy recently claimed elsewhere). The beauty of buried electric cables is that they can go on existing linear easements. Nobody condemns a new right of way in order to bury a cable for some sort of infrastructure, they use the ones that already exist.

Oh, God forbid Invenergy set a precedent for building a transmission line that does not cause permanent impacts for farmers! What a horrid thing! Because it's really not that much more expensive when you consider the millions of dollars Grain Belt has spent over the past decade fighting landowner groups, buying influence, and pumping out the propaganda. Add to that the cost of 10 years of delay, and it probably costs the same as burying it on existing rights of way from the get-go.

And hey, look, there's those mysterious "stakeholders" again. Who ARE these people? And why should they speak for what landowners want? Only landowners should determine how the project affects them. It's their land, not mysterious stakeholder's. Mysterious stakeholder has not been out there alongside the landowner over the decades, pouring his mysterious blood, sweat, and tears into the land. Mysterious stakeholder needs to shut his pie hole... if he's anything more than a sock puppet being used by Invenergy.

I really can't wait for Alan Dale's next article!!! Please let him know how much you appreciate his reporting on Grain Belt Express!

2 Comments

Hiding Information in Plain Sight

7/25/2022

1 Comment

I've watched a lot of transmission projects come and go, but never have I seen a project that has been so hidden from public notice. Think about it: If the public never finds out about it, then they won't form opposition, hire lawyers, and intervene at the PSC. They also won't generate any negative media or political unpopularity. A transmission project hidden from public notice is traveling a stressful road richly studded with hidden landmines. In my opinion, it's a stupid idea headed for failure.

Grain Belt Express "Tiger Connector" transmission project was barely mentioned in Invenergy's press releases earlier this month. It was hidden in plain sight on the second page of the release, a place reporters rarely go, especially if the "important" talking points are bulleted for them on the first page. Local press didn't even mention it. No story, no public notice, no participation, no opposition.

When the project was announced, the few maps that circulated were vague dotted lines on a zoomed out map that only included major roadways. Transmission developers ALWAYS have detailed aerial photography maps available at Open House dog and pony shows, and increasingly these developers share their maps online well in advance of the "meetings". Seeing a detailed map of their property with a new transmission line drawn in is often the trigger point for landowners. But if Invenergy keeps these maps hidden until just two days before the Open House, then less landowners will have an opportunity to see them. Less notification, less participation at the Open House, less opposition.

And speaking of those Open House "meetings" they are always, and I do mean ALWAYS, the subject of a well-circulated press release for local media, along with paid advertising in print, radio, TV and internet. The idea of holding these meetings is to gather public input. But if the public doesn't know about these meetings because the transmission developer has not adequately advertised them with plenty of notice, then the public probably won't attend. No attendance, no maps, no participation, no opposition.

Invenergy mailed a letter to what it called "impacted landowners" notifying them of the Open House meetings just two weeks in advance. Actual delivery of the letters was well within that two-week window. And who is checking to make sure Invenergy's list of "impacted landowners" is accurate? Even the best transmission developers miss large numbers of "impacted landowners" at this stage, which is why they also buy advertisements and press reporters for news stories. They may actually want the public to find out and attend the "meetings." But if a landowner doesn't get a letter, or has a scheduling conflict, then they miss out. No notification, no attendance, no participation, no opposition.

Invenergy has performed a parody of "public notice" for its Tiger Connector transmission project by not using industry best practices for public notice and hiding "information" in plain sight in places landowners would never look.

The Public Service Commission should be very concerned about these shady practices. Your elected officials should also be concerned about it. Please let them know how disappointed you are in "public notice" shortcuts for this project.

You can submit an online comment to the PSC here. The case number is EA-2023-0017.

Invenergy has created a "virtual public meeting" on its website. According to earlier statements, it will only be available for a very short time. You can visit it here.

Be sure to check out the aerial photographic maps all the way at the bottom of the page. If you don't see them, or can't make them function (which has already been a complaint) you may need to change or update your internet browser. Don't give up! But, then again, if half the internet visitors can't access the maps because they are not designed to operate in a wide-variety of internet browsers, then less people see them (we're really developing a theme here!)

The rest of the page is what I call propaganda. Let's review.

"New power delivery" In fact, Invenergy claims 2 nuclear power plants worth. Reality: Grain Belt is a MERCHANT transmission project. That means that it will only deliver power to an entity that has signed a contract to pay to use the power line. Grain Belt cannot and will not just "deliver power" in general. "Existing customers" have contracted for just 10% of Grain Belt's capacity, although 20% of its new capacity has been offered for years with no takers. That's right, nobody has purchased 250 MW of service in Missouri that GBE has been offering for years. All the propaganda and marketing spiel in the world cannot make electric distributors in Missouri buy something they don't need. Missourians know the story about painting Tom Sawyer's fence very well. If nobody wants it now, it's probably not marketable.

"New local jobs, spending and tax revenue!" But selling 2 nuclear power plants worth of extra energy into Callaway County directly competes with the reliable sources of energy Callaway already relies on, such as Ameren's Callaway Energy Center. The nuclear power plant currently provides thousands of good paying jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue and local community charities. Which would provide more? I think it is the Callaway Energy Center, hands down. Absolutely no contest. A bird in hand is worth more than the promise of two in the bush.

Invenergy's "experience." They say, "Invenergy knowns (sic) how to build the right way and has relationships with over 12,000 landowners, more than 80 percent of whom are farmers and ranchers." But reality is that nearly 100% of these "farmers and ranchers" signed voluntary agreements with the company because they were promised royalties or other payments that "share in the wealth" of Invenergy's land use. Transmission lines make a one-time "market value" payment for the perpetual use of your land. No matter how much money Invenergy makes from the transmission line, your compensation will not increase. Invenergy has recently begun condemning the land of folks who won't sign voluntarily.

The cheaper Grain Belt Express is to build, the bigger profit for Invenergy. GBE is approved to sell its service at market rates. The price GBE charges is set by market forces. It is not reliant on its cost to build and operate. While regulators can limit a jurisdictional utility's profit, the sky's the limit with Grain Belt Express! Nobody can hold their profit in check. And the cheaper the project is to build and operate, the more profit is in it for Invenergy! Perhaps that why, after promising single structure "monopoles" to landowners for a decade, Invenergy recently changed the structures after it purchased the bankrupt project from Clean Line Energy Partners. Invenergy says all transmission structures will now be cheaper 4-legged lattice construction. Promising monopoles seems to be a Grain Belt Express bait and switch.

All this same information will be decorating Grain Belt's venue tomorrow and Wednesday on strategically placed poster board easels manned by perky but clueless company representatives. But we all know that the only thing people come to see are the maps.

Make your plan to attend:

Audrain County
Tuesday, July 26
Knights of Columbus
9584 State Hwy 15, Mexico, MO
65265
Meeting 1
12:00 p.m. to 2:00p.m.
OR
Meeting 2
5:00p.m. to 7:00p.m.

Callaway County
Wednesday, July 27
John C Harris Community Center
350 Sycamore St, Fulton, MO
65251
Meeting 1
12:00 p.m. to 2:00p.m.
OR
Meeting 2
5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Don't let Invenergy get away with preventing you from getting information about a project that could have devastating effects on your home, your business and your community!

1 Comment

Magic Math Is For Fools

7/21/2022

0 Comments

In case you missed it last week, Invenergy posted an "Analysis Summary: Impact of Grain Belt Express on Kansas and Missouri Ratepayers." It goes something like this:

Low-cost modeling process market consultants assuming estimated wind generation projected average reduce expected potential forward-looking wholesale market impacts revenue requirement controllability assessment aggregates combined impacts lower inclusion utility investment the collective partial revenue requirement average approximately production capacity factor flat production profile evening peak electric demand SPP MISO regions wholesale electric costs region spanning prices price spread opportunity arbitrage nodes average annual basis off-peak price differences translate Kansas and Missouri. Billions.

That was my take away. It really is that obtuse and meaningless. I don't think it's meant to be understood. I think maybe it's meant to be held by well-fed, middle-aged "economic development" big fish in small ponds while they slap each other on the back and bloviate knowingly about "savings" from Grain Belt Express. You know these guys as well as I do... they've got a finger in everyone's pie and they trade in "Do You Know Who I AM?" Jack of all trades, master of none, small government sycophant who likes to pretend he knows everything about energy and his opinion is gold.

Except... if you quizzed these guys they'd quickly find something more important to do than talk to you, or simply get angry at you for implying they are a know-nothing waste of flesh. They're probably on their way to find out what Invenergy can do for them. Quid pro quo, you know.

First of all... GBE is just a transmission line. It doesn't sell power. Power purchased separately. How in the world did this variable get handled in the opaque report? Notice how the variables are not identified, much less the equation shared? My 8th grade Algebra teacher would give Invenergy an "F" and send it to the principal's office for not showing its work.

Fugheddaboutit. Here's all you need to know about electricity prices in Kansas and Missouri.

See that? The price of electricity in Kansas is 10.38 cents per kWh. The price of electricity in Missouri is 9.64 cents per kWh. So if we export electricity from Kansas and make it available for use in Missouri, it will RAISE electric prices in Missouri, not lower them. In addition, Missouri ratepayers would need to add the $7B, that's BILLION, dollar price tag of Grain Belt Express to their equation, since Invenergy claims it necessary in its report.

There, wasn't that simpler and a whole lot more logical?

0 Comments

Invenergy Manufactures News

7/13/2022

2 Comments

The decline of journalism over the past 20 years or so would shock your grandfather, who lived in news' heyday. Investigative journalism is dead. Main stream media no longer reports the facts... it reports an agenda. Reporters are now less valued and more overworked than ever. Today's reporters have grown lazy about verifying facts and have become a staid, incurious bunch. They no longer want to tell both sides of the story. They simply repackage corporate and government press releases without verifying anything or providing any balance to the story. They are nothing more than media puppets. The bad news is that corporations can now pretty much write their own news, true or false. The other bad news is that you need to look elsewhere for the truth. There is no good news. Journalists say that the internet ruined the news industry, but perhaps the news industry ruined itself by losing its impartiality and accuracy to corporate overlords.

And Invenergy took full advantage of it on Monday, pumping out stories like this AP blurb that was sent around the country to use as filler. What does it say?

Grain Belt Express has been expanded so that it would "match" the power of 4 nuclear power plants.
Investment has increased to $7B.
Some municipalities intended to use the line for a "long" time.
There will be some magical amount of "savings."
Some advocacy groups love it.
"Some" farmers don't want the project.

Where's the mention of "Tiger Connector" which is a 40-mile transmission extension through virgin ground? There's "some" more farmers who are going to be furiously opposed to that. How did this happen? Invenergy's press release, news conference, and the fact that the average reporter had about 10 minutes to spend on this story combined to create a "story" full of non-news that buried the real news of an expansion of GBE's route and intent to use eminent domain in Missouri.

As you'll notice in the press release, the Tiger Connector is buried on page 2, past the bulleted list of important points. No reporter read that far. They stopped at the bulleted list because it was there that Invenergy had so conveniently summarized the important points. But those weren't the important points. They were just complete nonsense and fluff designed to bury the Tiger Connector story. And it worked. Thanks a lot, lazy reporters.

Also take a look at GBE's website. Where's the Tiger Connector? Oh, here it is, one page deep, where a curious reporter would never find it. And it's not part of the "Route" page where someone would look for the route of the project. It doesn't exist on the route. It has its own separate tab, which is unexplained, and the page contains nothing of any value to anyone. I've been doing transmission for nearly 15 years now and I've never seen a new transmission project rolled out with so little actual information. There aren't even any maps for residents of newly affected counties to see. It doesn't even mention where this project might want to go. It's almost like Invenergy is HIDING this new proposal.

Is Invenergy embarrassed that it has spent so much time and money on a route that isn't even viable for the project because it could not connect to the grid at any points even close to the route it has been buying and condemning for years? Is Invenergy embarrassed because it still doesn't have any customers aside from the loss-leader municipality contract for only "up to" 250 MW?

Nah, I think they did this on purpose as a ploy to keep this information from any landowners who could object to the plan and challenge it at the PSC. If there is no information about it in the news, nobody would know. If the information is hard to find on GBE's website, nobody will find it. If they do find it, there is no detail that might set an affected landowner off. If GBE doesn't mail notification letters to affected landowners until AFTER the news conference, and dangerously close to the "Open House" dog and pony show "meetings," nobody would know. We have yet to see one of these notifications show up, but they may be designed to look like a junk mail postcard you'd toss right into the trash without reading. If that happens, nobody would know. GBE didn't "announce" the details of its Open House meetings until AFTER the news conference, therefore the media would not publish that information and nobody would know about it.

Here's the information. Spread it around because GBE is hiding it and the media isn't interested in public notice.

Audrain County
Tuesday, July 26
Knights of Columbus
9584 State Hwy 15, Mexico, MO
65265
Meeting 1
12:00 p.m. to 2:00p.m.
OR
Meeting 2
5:00p.m. to 7:00p.m.

Callaway County
Wednesday, July 27
John C Harris Community Center
350 Sycamore St, Fulton, MO
65251
Meeting 1
12:00 p.m. to 2:00p.m.
OR
Meeting 2
5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.

The public meetings will be open house format and attendees can come and go as they please during meeting hours. No formal presentation will be given. For those unable to attend in person, there is a self-paced Virtual Open House that is accessible on the website anytime between July 25 and August 5, 2022.

Got it? The information for landowners is only available for 12 days. If you miss that time frame, or the meetings (like say, you did something completely outrageous like GO ON VACATION in the middle of summer), then you're out of luck. You don't get any information. That's outrageous!

Ya know... real public notice that isn't actually trying to HIDE things is always sent to the media, who could help notify the public. What are you trying to pull Invenergy?

Invenergy says Tiger Connector is just a small change and the story is elsewhere. No sane person would believe that! Maybe opposition doesn't need GBE to help tell their story. Maybe Invenergy is about to get slammed. There's no way they're getting this through the PSC as a minor change that nobody minds. In fact, the Missouri PSC said it was not a "change" and that Grain Belt Express has to file a whole new application for these changes. Oops! Nice try, Invenergy, but did you actually think that was going to work?

Next, let's look at those manufactured talking points Invenergy fed to the press and analyze how useful they actually are, and whether they have a chance of biting back.

GBE will now be the equivalent of 4 new nuclear power plants. Sorry, but GBE does not generate energy. Maybe they meant that it could deliver the equivalent of 4 new nuclear power plants, if it actually had interconnection requests to inject that much power (but that's a different blog). But where would that power be generated? Not in Missouri. It would be generated elsewhere and imported. And if Missouri imported the power of 4 nukes located in Kansas, then an equivalent amount of Missouri generation would close, maybe even actual nuclear plants, like the Callaway Generating Station owned by Ameren that employs a lot of people and pays a lot of taxes in Callaway County. Ya know, maybe this wasn't really a smart talking point.

Investment increases to $7B. How in the world did GBE go from its historic $2B price tag under Clean Line Energy Partners to today's $7B price tag? Even with today's sky-high inflation, that's impossible. Even the cost of the Tiger Connector couldn't get this transmission project to $7B. Maybe there's more to this story than a transmission line.

What's that you say? $7B of new wind projects? So the investment isn't just a transmission line? What'cha building, Invenergy, and where's the check on your market power when you're "negotiating" with other wind developers to take service from the line? No chance that Invenergy could negotiate a better price with itself than it would negotiate with a competitor. No chance at all...

Invenergy trots out the same old, tired "customers" who got the deal of a lifetime to take service at below cost rates. I notice these customers didn't figure prominently in Invenergy's fluffy press release. Invenergy found some new friends to "cheer" for it. 2-4-6-8 What are we here to validate? Rah! Rah! Rah!

Magical savings. Because Invenergy hired some company to toss a word salad that concludes there will be all these magical savings that real people just can't figure out. It's all made up crap and they won't show you their math. You're supposed to trust the results. But without seeing the figures used to calculate these savings, it cannot be verified. They could have put anything in their equation (and maybe they did!). It's not just you... this savings report doesn't make sense to anyone I know.

Advocacy groups. I really don't think this needs an explanation. Gimme an S. Gimme an H. Gimme an I. Gimme an L. Gimme another L. What does that spell? Rah! Rah! Rah!

"Some farmers." How about "the vast majority of agricultural land owners along with their non-agricultural neighbors"? "Some" would more appropriately apply to the advocates, because they're so few in number. But, despite the backhanded attempt to minimize opposition, some farmers still managed to pollute Invenergy's dream story. That's the best a lazy press could do.

There were a few other giggles in the few stories that were original journalism. I particularly liked this blurb:

Utility regulators in Missouri and Kansas have already approved construction of the line. An Invenergy spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to an email asking if the expansion plans required additional approvals.

Not only does it require additional approvals. It requires a WHOLE NEW APPLICATION.

And then there's this:

“We heard that story over and over: ‘We want to see more of it brought to Missouri,’” said Shashank Sane, who leads Invenergy’s transmission business, after a Monday news conference in St. Louis. “It was really about bringing benefits to the state.”

Invenergy did not disclose which Missouri entities it expects will buy the additional power, but it is “confident that the customer base is there,” said Sane.

Right, mystery customers. The same ones that have failed to buy the 250 MW leftover from the last offering.

Invenergy carefully created a whole stack of hay to hide its "we need a new connection point" needle. But all that hay may end up being too hard to chew.

2 Comments

Where's the Customers, Invenergy?

7/12/2022

4 Comments

When I said I could make a month of blog posts out of Invenergy's "Tiger Connector" scheme yesterday, maybe I was only half joking. Today, we're going to concentrate on the reality of merchant transmission. Grain Belt Express is a merchant transmission project.

A merchant transmission project is strictly a financial proposition. A company proposes that if it builds a transmission line between two points that load serving entities will find it so useful and economic that they will voluntarily negotiate a contract to use it. Just because Invenergy offers new transmission does not mean anyone will use it.

We need to separate Invenergy's false bravado about "energy" from the reality of merchant transmission in order to think logically about Invenergy's scheme. A transmission line is only a transmission line. It does not produce energy. It's strictly a roadway to get energy from one place to the other. Invenergy is only selling capacity on its transmission line (road), it is not selling energy. It is aptly compared to a toll road -- customer pays to use the roadway to transport something it finds useful and economic. If Invenergy had customers for Grain Belt Express, the only thing the customers would be purchasing is use of the transmission line. Any energy transmitted over the line would have to be purchased from an electricity generator under a separate contract at a separate price. In order to actually take electricity over the line, a customer would have to buy electricity from a point near one of the converter stations and then ship it to their point of use. GBE is a direct current (DC) transmission line. In order for electricity to use the line, it would first have to be converted from alternating current (AC) before being loaded on the line for use at its destination. When the DC electricity gets to its destination, it will once again have to be converted back to AC before being offloaded from the line. The conversion process wastes a considerable amount of energy. If you purchased AC energy from, say, Kansas, you'd lose a considerable portion of it in the two conversion processes before it arrived at your destination in, say, Missouri. If you were the customer, you'd eat the cost of that lost electricity you paid for.

As mentioned, a merchant transmission project is strictly voluntary. A merchant project is not vetted or planned for reliability, economic, or public policy purposes by regional transmission planners. Electric customers don't "need" it for reliability, economic or public policy purposes. It's simply something extra that customers would volunteer to purchase if they found it financially lucrative. And this has been the problem with merchant transmission in the Midwest. It's not attracting customers. Customers in the east are looking at offshore wind and other local renewables, like solar, to meet their renewable energy needs. Eastern utilities have NEVER looked at importing electricity from half a continent away using toll road transmission projects. The cost of the transmission to get it there must be added to the cost of the supposedly "cheap" energy from the Midwest, and the result is often equal to or more expensive than buying local renewables. Another factor for Eastern utilities (and states) is that building renewables locally provides an economic bump to the locality. Eastern states do not want to export all their energy dollars to a generator and transmission company thousands of miles away when they could create jobs and economic development at home. This is why merchant transmission for export has never worked.

First Clean Line Energy Partners, and now Invenergy, have previously claimed in Missouri PSC testimony that Eastern customers in PJM Interconnection will make up the vast majority of the customer base for Grain Belt Express because they can sell the capacity for more money there. Clean Line even offered a below-cost contract to a handful of Missouri municipalities in order to get the project approved as "useful" to Missouri. Clean Line purported that it would make the loss up in its sales to Eastern customers. Except we've never seen any evidence that those customers exist, and with Invenergy's big announcement yesterday that it will only construct the first "phase" of its project from Kansas to Missouri for the time being, I believe that demonstrates that those Eastern customers don't exist. If they did, GBE would be decreasing its offering in Missouri and increasing its offering to PJM.

So, what's left? Invenergy thinks it can maybe find enough suckers, err customers, in Missouri to buy service for importing 2500 MW of electricity for use in Missouri. Except, do those customers even exist? GBE has been offering "up to 500 MW" of service to Missouri customers since the Clean Line days. It has only secured a contract for "up to 250MW" with the municipalities. That extra 250MW has been for sale for years and it appears that nobody has purchased it. But yet Invenergy now thinks its service is so popular it will suddenly be able to sell ten times that amount. Does this even make sense? Where's the customers, Invenergy?

In media quotes yesterday, Invenergy tried to play coy about customers.

Invenergy did not disclose which Missouri entities it expects will buy the additional power, but it is “confident that the customer base is there,” said Sane.

The line is a so-called merchant line, meaning its costs wouldn’t be spread broadly across the region like most intrastate transmission lines. Instead, only utilities and other consumers that buy capacity on the line would pay.

Among those customers are more than three dozen small cities and towns across Missouri, which estimate they will save more than $12 million annually compared with coal plants that supply power under existing contracts.

So the only customers it has are the loss-leader priced ones it has had all along. If there were new customers, Invenergy would have been pushing them to the front of the quote line. Instead, the only advocates singing GBE's praises in yesterday's news coverage were business groups who don't buy electricity. Those aren't customers. Customers are load serving entities who buy electricity wholesale and sell to others at retail.

There is no indication that any new customers are eager to purchase capacity on GBE. Maybe Invenergy is trying to paint Tom Sawyer's fence to attract customers, however Missourians are wise to that game. Duh.

In another self-flagellating talking point yesterday, Invenergy claimed GBE would sell the equivalent of the output of 4 nuclear power plants to Missouri electric utilities. That electricity will be produced in Kansas, not Missouri. If Missouri is going to increase its electricity imports by an amount equal to 4 nuclear power plants, then it must decrease the amount of electricity currently produced in Missouri by the same amount. This is the death knell for 4 (or more) Missouri electric generation plants that currently employ thousands. Importing electricity over GBE isn't going to provide an amount of good-paying jobs equal to those lost. In addition, localities will lose the tax revenues they currently enjoy from those plants that will be shut down without an equal replacement from GBE. GBE is an economic loss to Missouri, no matter how much fluff and nonsense Invenergy tries to disseminate. This is the same reasoning the Eastern utilities use when rejecting GBE. It just makes sense.

And Invenergy has another problem with its new scheme. Investor owned utilities, like Ameren, are for-profit enterprises. Ameren is permitted by regulators to make a profit on the transmission it builds and the power it generates. If Ameren builds local renewables in Missouri, it earns a profit on them. If Ameren builds transmission in Missouri to transmit the renewable energy it generates, Ameren makes a profit. If, instead, Ameren buys capacity from GBE it is only reimbursed at cost of its purchase. There is no profit for Ameren. Likewise on the renewable generators -- if Ameren buys energy from Kansas there is no profit, they are only reimbursed dollar for dollar. So, why would Ameren sign a contract to use GBE to import energy when it could make more money owning local renewables and transmission. I might also add that local renewables don't need huge new transmission projects like GBE so they are ultimately cheaper than imports. In conclusion, why would Ameren buy the milk when it could own the cow? This is just another reason why I believe GBE's scheme won't work.

So much more malarkey to unravel. Next, let's look at Invenergy's media plan for this scheme. I challenge you readers to find any news story that mentions the new "Tiger Connector."

Until tomorrow...

4 Comments

How The Media Sausage Factory Cranks Out Fake News

4/30/2022

3 Comments

What happens when the people who create "news" have a political or ideological bias? The "news" they crank out no longer presents facts and allows the reader to decide. Biased media thinks readers are too stupid to make the same biased conclusions they would when presented with actual facts, therefore the media makes up facts that are not really facts at all in order to skew the conclusion the reader would draw from the story without the made-up facts.

Here's a look inside the sausage factory of biased news creation that demonstrates how the media lies to you, dear reader.

Our case study: Price of Progress: Grain Belt Express Pits Public Benefit and Private Property Rights in Race Against Climate Change. Kind of a screwy headline for a piece that was supposed to tell landowner's stories. The headline tells you a lot. Race? The idea that we have to hurry up and "beat" climate change by building a transmission line with with only one customer for less than 10% of the line's capacity is so much created hogwash. In the global picture, the effect of Grain Belt Express is infinitesimal. It won't actually "beat" climate change. But it will beat agriculture and struggling farmers in Missouri, adding a new impediment to their production and a burden on their finances and heritage.

There's a lot screwy about this story, but let's focus on just one "fact" in the story:

For the 39 municipalities in Missouri signed up to buy power off the line, it’s an estimated $12.8 million in annual savings.

It's not a quote of someone's opinion, it's a statement of "fact". Facts require investigation on the part of a reporter, especially "facts" that present such a specific number. If there's an estimate with such a specific figure, then there must be data used to reach that estimate. Show us your math, right?

The municipalities have not shown anyone their math since January 2017. That's 5 years ago. In 2017, the municipalities' witness at the Missouri PSC said:

As stated in the rebuttal testimony of Duncan Kincheloe, MJMEUC’s president and general manager, our current arrangement with Illinois Power Marketing Company (“IPM”) for 100 MWs of energy and capacity will expire in 2021, and that contract currently serves the needs of the Missouri Public Energy Pool (MoPEP). We have been actively considering sources to replace this energy and capacity.

What was it that Kincheloe said?

In 2021, a contract for 100 MWs of energy and capacity with Illinois Power Marketing Company (IPM) (former Ameren coal plants in Illinois, now owned by Dynegy) will expire. That energy and capacity will need to be replaced. That contract currently serves MoPEP, a group of 35 Missouri cities for which MJMEUC provides full requirements for wholesale energy, capacity and ancillary services. The TSA with Grain Belt and the power purchase agreement with Infinity Wind would allow the MoPEP to replace the current 100 MWs of purchased power in MISO with more affordable energy. John Grotzinger will explain in his rebuttal testimony that while the TSA and corresponding contract with Infinity Wind will not by themselves replace the IPM contract, these contracts will form the cornerstone of the resource mix to replace the IPM contract.

So, the municipalities' savings argument rests on replacing IPM with GBE + a contract for wind in Kansas. A low price is supposed to replace a higher price and result in savings. But what year is this? It's 2022. The IPM contract expired last year. What did the municipalities replace that energy with? It can't be GBE, because GBE is still limping along trying to get permitted in Illinois. Nothing has been built. Was the new contract as expensive as IPM? Or was it cheaper? Where's the math using the new contract amount? Did the municipalities even do the math? It was the reporter's job to ask, especially since she was tipped off that there has been nothing shown since 2017 to back up their "estimate." They just keep spitting out the same numbers even though the underlying equation has changed drastically.

But the reporter has been unable to say whether or not she verified this "fact" in her story. First she claimed it was an estimate, as if using that word absolved her of verifying the estimated number. When asked if she did verify the number, she stopped responding. I will presume that means the answer is no. What a pity! She was quite engaging and promised to tell the real story that others in the media were missing. But, in the end, she ended up repeating the same old out-of-date information from the municipalities and other corporate propaganda from Invenergy.

Is the media incapable of telling a factual story? Must all truth be ground up in the media sausage factory before it is presented to a public presumed to be too ignorant to come to its own conclusions?

Don't count on them to tell a factual story.

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